Roast Rabbit Pieces On All Sides
by PurpleCarpetsAgainstViolence
Summary: The boys turn up at Pastor Jim's. John is in an exceptionally bad mood and Dean needs to learn to take his father's orders seriously. Jim's bunny needs to die. Because John Winchester said so. Depressing Wee!chesters Christmas Story.


Hey, so uhm...I'm struck with a sudden onset of John hate. My feelings for the man have always been tied up with the current relationship with my own dad and this is what happens when I get plot bunnies while having phone conversations (read: screaming matches) with the man...  
Anyway on a lighter note, I don't own our Winchester boys. If I did they definitely wouldn't be..._less_ broken.  
Rated for language and off-screen violence against animals and because I'm apparently trying to come up with the most depressing holiday stories ever.

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Christmas. A time for sharing and peace and love and family and Good _Lord_, does John Winchester go out of his way to ruin the holiday for his children.

It's not like Jim Murphy isn't used to the man dropping by in the dead of night, unannounced, face battered beyond recognition, two half-asleep children hanging from his arms, but to do it two days before Christmas Eve with a "Jesus motherfucking Christ, Jim, I need a bed" is rich, even for him. Jim prays the slur on his words comes from exhaustion, not hard liquor, but with John Winchester you never know.

He motions them inside. It's the only thing he can do, because pointing out that he doesn't exactly condone blasphemy in his own house or asking why on earth he thought it was a good idea to drive in his state for God knows how many hours with his children in the backseat will undoubtedly make him turn right around and drive the next four hundred miles to Bobby Singer's place. If the two of them are talking at the moment, that is. For all his hard-ass persona, John Winchester can be incredibly thin skinned when it comes to any perceived criticism.

The next morning, John doesn't show any signs of waking, not even emerging from his room to piss or get some water and complain about his kids making too much noise.

"What happened last night?" Jim finally asks when Dean has stopped bouncing Fruit Loops off of his brother's floppy hair.

"His uhm…business trip didn't go so well" he answers with a quick glance at little Sammy and a conspiratory wink in Jim's direction, reminding the pastor that the younger boy doesn't know about what it is their father does. Not that Dean, just a month away from his eighth birthday is near old enough to know about…but yeah, John Winchester. Parenting choices. Jim's tired of that argument.

"Do you know what went wrong?" he asks carefully.

"Not really" the boy shrugs. "He came home in the middle of the night 'n said we gotta go."

"Fucker got the drop o' me" Sam pipes up from the other side of the table. "What?" he adds, once he's met with two shocked stares. "I'm jus' sayin' what Daddy said, so _I _didn't cuss."

"Alright." Sighing, Jim tells the boys to leave their father alone for some time and maybe play outside in the snow.

It takes them all of two minutes before they burst through the backdoor again, Dean steamrolling past his little brother and just about catching himself before crashing into the kitchen counter.

"Pastor Jim!" he's panting, his face flushed red with excitement or cold, Jim can't tell. "Pastor Jim, there's – "

"Pastor Jim, guess what we found!" Sammy has finally managed to catch up to the older boy and is now actually jumping up and down.

"Pastor Jim, there're – "

"No Dean, I want him to _guess_!"

"He doesn't wanna guess, Sammy. Pastor Jim, you've got – "

"Bunnies!"

"There're bunnies in your barn!"

And thus begins the epic, albeit short lived and ultimately tragic love story of The Winchester Boys and Pastor Jim's Bunnies.

Jim tells them about Ms. Madlund who owns the farm down the road and who gave Jim two of her bunnies for Thanksgiving. He doesn't tell them what the pair is ultimately destined for, because there's really no need for that. If they have been eaten by the Winchester's next visit he can just tell them another story about giving them away to live on a nicer farm or something.

He doesn't have much time to talk to them, anyway, because John chooses that moment to finally join them in the land of the living, his face just a few strokes of the brush short of an expressionist painting.

"Daddy, Pastor Jim's gots bunnies!" Sam cries, bouncing on his little toes.

John grunts in return. It must have been an encouraging grunt, because Dean flops down next to him and starts telling him about "that one rabbit. He's grey 'n black and I was gonna call him Bruce Wayne, but Sammy wanted to call him Rudolph, 'cause it's Christmas and all, but Rudolph's a reindeer, so that's silly, so now he's called Bruce the Red Nosed Bat Deer!"

"You stay away from that thing" John tells him and Dean's face crumbles into a disappointed pout.

"But he's our friend now, Dad. We're gonna teach him tricks 'n everything."

John raises an annoyed eyebrow at him, staring longingly at the coffee maker that Jim's working.

"Fine, you do that." Dean immediately brightens, showing off his new missing tooth. "But I'm tellin' you that bunny's not gonna be around, come Wednesday."

"How come?" Dean looks worried again. Sammy having lost interest in the conversation has wandered off, inspecting the ornaments on Jim's Christmas tree.

"He's for food, son." John croaks around his tired throat and Jim is fairly sure that he wouldn't be doing this if he wasn't beat to hell from his last hunt and still low on caffeine. "So, you teach him all the tricks you want, but two nights from now we'll have rabbit stew."

"But…" Dean looks close to tears, whether it's because he fears for his new rabbit friend or because he's actually contemplating talking back to his old man, Jim isn't sure.

"No buts, Dean." John somehow manages to avoid Jim's damning gaze. "You wanna get attached to that thing, fine, but don't come crying to me when he ends up on your plate."

And that's how two days later, the two men find themselves in Jim's barn, carrying John's hunting knife, staring down at Bruce the Red Nosed Bat Deer.

"Let's just take the other one" Jim suggests, nodding at Bruce's brown companion, but John shakes his head.

"Told the boy we were gonna eat this one. Told him not to get attached to the thing."

Yes, well, they both knew from the get go how that was gonna go down. Of course, Dean spent every waking minute in the last two days smuggling his vegetables into the barn and trying to convince John to let the bunny sleep in the boys' bed and generally convincing himself that Bruce was as far from being turned into rabbit stew as any of them. John told him several times that he wasn't doing himself any favors. Jim is sure he's come to regret his promise to kill the bunny, now that he's actually awake, but it'll be a cold day in hell before John Winchester goes back on a threat, so here they are. In the far corner, Jim can make out the remnants of yesterday's bunny obstacle course.

"Can't afford to get attached to shit in our kind of life", John mutters, adjusting his grip on his knife and Jim scoffs.

"So what?" They both know that this is more about proving that Dean's got nothing on his father in the stubborn department, than anything else. "So next time you're in South Dakota you're going to make them eat Singer's dogs?"

Jim's got a point. But John's not to be swayed.

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Christmas dinner is a disaster. Unsurprisingly. Jim isn't really sure how John expected that murdering his son's new best friend, rubbing his nose in it and threatening dire consequences if said friend didn't get eaten would end well.

Dean has tears running down his face (silent now, after John promised to give him something to cry about), his arms crossed over his little heaving chest, matching his father's angry pose.

"Why're you so sad?" Sam asks from across the table. The toddler doesn't quite grasp the concept of animals-get-turned-into-meat just yet, so he's the only one at the table, actually enjoying their meal.

"'Cause we're eating Bruce" Dean sniffs, tears falling onto his plate and mingling with the thick brown sauce.

Sammy giggles. "You can't eat Brucy."

"Yeah, you can" Dean dares a quick glare at his father before he starts hiccupping again. "Da-Dad cut'im up 'n cooked him."

"Nu-huh!" half chewed pieces of rabbit stew tumble from Sammy's mouth. "Bruce's out inna barn, 'member?"

Dean is in the middle of drawing in a shaky breath for a tearful reply, when John cuts him off with a dangerously quiet "that's enough." He motions his own (mostly unused, Jim notices) fork to indicate the boy's plate. "Eat. Now."

Dean spikes a couple of onions and mushrooms onto his fork and flinches violently when John crashes his palm into the table. Jim watches as the boy forces himself to chew on the smallest piece of Bruce he could find on his plate. The hiccups get worse and sauce is leaking out the side of his mouth, mixing with snot and tears and John just about manages to grab the boy around the waist and maneuver him over to the sink before he is dissolved into a pitiable ball of painful retching.

There can't have been much in the boy's stomach to chuck up, but it seems like the session over the sink lasts forever. Finally, after the last of the dry heaving has stopped, John pushes a glass of water into his son's shaking hands.

"You're okay" he whispers, but when Dean nods and tries to bury his head in John's shirt, he pushes him away. "Now listen, what did I say was gonna happen to your bunny?"

"You…y-you said he was for food, but I thought – "

"I don't care what you thought, Dean, what did I tell you?" And this is what it all boils down to. The Gospel according to John Winchester must be followed without question, even if it's about a pointless comment that was made while he was tired and exhausted and that could be turned around with no consequences whatsoever. John Winchester's word is law and if he picked a certain bunny to be eaten, then that's what's going to happen.

"You said we were gonna eat him for Christmas dinner, sir." Dean whispers, the tears starting up again.

"And did you think I was lying when I said that?"

Dean shakes his head.

"Joking?"

"No, sir."

"Well, then you shouldn't have gotten attached to the thing."

Dean looks vaguely confused by the big word, but nods dutifully and Jim wonders if John has any kind of idea what exactly he's teaching his children here. Or if he's even trying to teach them anything or just going for the shock factor to scare them into obedience.

"Now, I said we were gonna eat rabbit stew for dinner and that's what's gonna happen." He picks up the little boy from where he's been sitting on the counter and sends him over to his chair. "You're not getting up again, until that plate's cleared."

Dean nods and starts moving the stew around on his plate again. Jim decides not to comment, when John puts his own, mainly untouched plate away, ten minutes later. He could give several sermons on the man's numerous failings, but ultimately, he'd rather the boys spend Christmas Morning miserably opening presents in his kitchen, than holed up in the backseat of the Impala, driving away from the meddlesome priest, so he keeps his mouth shut.

It's painful, watching Dean choke and gag on every single bite, but the fight has left the boy. Out of sympathy, Jim tries to finish his own plate, the food going stale in his mouth when he thinks of the happy little fur ball that Dean dragged around the yard, not twelve hours ago. John made sure the boy got a good report on how exactly he drew his Bowie knife accross Bruce's throat, how there was blood everywhere...

He stays with the boy at the table when John scoops up little Sammy to put him into bed. When he's sure the man is out of earshot, he tries to grab Dean's plate. John's made his point. There's no need to put the kid through another hour of tortured gagging, but Dean pushes it out of his reach, shaking his head.

"Dad said I gotta eat it all" he whispers.

Yes, well, that's why Jim was going to throw the leftovers away, but Dean's having none of it.

"Dad's right. I shouldn't'a gotten…_at-tached_." He works his lips around the unfamiliar word, already deciding that he doesn't like it one bit. "Dad said I gotta eat it all."

Right. Because the sun sets at John Winchester's command and not doing as he says has terrible consequences and one day this little boy is going to die in his quest to please his father, Jim's sure of it.

"Pastor Jim" Dean suddenly pipes up with renewed interest. "You gotta tell Sammy that Santa took Bruce with him to the North Pole."

"What?" Jim isn't quite sure he understands.

"Sammy doesn't get that he ate Bruce tonight. That's 'cause he's only three, so he gets stupid like that sometimes, but he's gonna see that Bruce isn't in his cage 'n he's gonna get worried so you gotta tell him something to make him feel happy."

That night, Jim has to stop himself from praying for something terrible to happen to John Winchester for doing this to his boy, thinking he's teaching him about life, while he can hear Dean retching and crying in the bathroom next door.

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So there you go. I'm really unsure about this story. I like it...except it makes me feel sick...but again, that's the point, so...please tell me what you think?


End file.
